Her meaning was obvious. They were not to stay here. They had their choice of which exit to take— any that they could reach, at any rate—and they were to act quickly.
Clive said, "Well, which shall it be? Any suggestions?"
Finnbogg chose not to participate in a debate. He pounced on the nearest hole, a bright disk that glowed aquamarine.
Clive whirled, intending to restrain the dwarf, but the movement was unnecessary. Finnbogg stood baffled, held upright by what appeared to be a surface of pure, solid light.
Horace Smythe stepped gingerly on a crimson hole, first testing it with the tip of one foot, then standing squarely on it, grinning. "Give it a try, Major! It tingles! Really makes these weary dogs feel happy again!"
Behind Finnbogg, Annie was getting into the spirit of the game, jumping from opening to opening, bouncing off solid disks of yellow, green, orange.
Clive grinned, jumped onto a circle of brilliant magenta—and felt himself swept through it, the only sensation a not unpleasant prickling that danced across his skin as he passed through the opening.
User Annie followed him, then Finnbogg, looking happy and relieved not to have been left behind.
Clive heard a scuffling behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Shriek enter the opening as well. She was not abandoning them, then.
At least not yet.
In an instant Clive felt himself sliding, accelerating in a downward chute. The magenta illumination came from the walls of the tube, as the illumination had come from the atoms of air in the egg-shaped chamber.
There might have been pictures or inscriptions on the inside of the tube, but if so they flashed by so rapidly that only the vaguest of impressions of them could be gained. Even as he slid, Clive pondered the oddity of the different-colored openings. It had appeared, briefly, that the companions had their choice as to which exit to take from the egg-shaped chamber. But every exit was sealed to them—certainly every exit that they tried—until Clive had tried to stand on the magenta disk.
Someone, or something had forced this choice upon them!
The chute let them out high on a hillside. Clive expected to behold some exotic vista; in this he was to be surprised, although by no means disappointed. The hillside was covered with vegetation, and fell away before their feet, extending to a prosperous valley.
Beside him, Clive heard Horace Hamilton Smythe exclaim, "I say, it's like home!"
Finnbogg issued a sound that obviously conveyed the same nappy meaning.
And the vista was much like parts of the English countryside. Rolling hills, green fields, yellow-brown paths of hard-packed earth. There were even buildings, thatch-roofed cottages and, in the distance where Clive could barely make it out, an impressively large manor house built in classic Tudor style.
He rubbed his eyes. "Is it England?" He raised his head, fully hoping and half-expecting to see the blue English sky with its puffy clouds and friendly sun somewhere above a distant horizon.
But the horizon did not drop away as it ought to.
In the distance the land rose so that tiny, remote objects hung suspended above closer ones. Still farther, the landscape was obscured by gathering mist.
And overhead, instead of blue sky and yellow sun, Clive beheld a constellation of tiny stars revolving in an eternal dance around some common center. He blinked and turned. Perhaps they should retreat through the tunnel they had used to enter this inside- out world.
The mouth of the tunnel was nowhere to be seen. Not for the first time since embarking on this adventure, he realized that there was no turning back.
Shriek's powerful hand grasped Clive's, and a cold clicking and rasping voice said in his mind, "No, Clive Folliot, it is not England."
Clive knew that he had heard the rasp of Shriek's mandibles. He knew that her language was something more remote from his own, more alien to him than the most exotic dialect of Tibet or of the Australian aborigine. And yet while the contact was maintained, he understood her.
"Why did you bring us here?" Folliot asked the spider-being.
"I have awaited you for a very long time, Clive Folliot. For you and your companions."
"But—why? What have you to do with us? There are persons and forces operating behind the scenes, manipulating all of us. Who are they? What is their goal?"
Shriek's face twitched into her bloodcurdling version of a smile. "What is your goal, Clive Folliot?"
"To find my brother." Shriek should have learned that much from their prior mental communion. But, forced to question his own motive, he found himself wondering if he really did wish to find Neville. He might be happier if Neville were dead—or lost forever in the Dungeon, a result nearly as desirable. Either way, could Clive somehow find his way back to England, he would in time gain control of the Tewkesbury estates and holdings, the family for-tune. He would be made for life, with or without the fame and fortune that a book might gain for him.
How much of his thought Shriek had comprehended, Clive could not fathom. In any case, she released her grip on him and scuttled down the hillside on her four spidery legs. Clive considered briefly setting off in another direction, but he sensed from Shriek a goodness of will and a source of strength not lightly to be forfeited. He addressed his other companions. "Let's stay together, then. Whatever transpires, our best chance is to remain united, to pool our resources, to help one another."
Finnbogg alone seemed to have an inkling of their whereabouts. Doglike, the dwarf was pacing back and forth on the hillside, swinging his muzzle, nostrils distended. Little whines of distress came from his throat.
"What's the matter, old fellow?" Clive asked him.
"Bad place, bad." Finnbogg butted Clive, almost knocking him to the ground. The massive Finnbogg obviously wanted reassurance, and Clive rubbed his head.
"Why's it a bad place, Finnbogg?"
Annie and Horace stood watching the others. Shriek had scuttled away. She stood at the bottom of the hill, peering back up at them.
After a moment she went on her way.
For Clive it was a moment of difficult decision. He had just made up his mind—or thought that he had—to follow Shriek. But Finnbogg was unwilling to continue just yet. Clive had to decide whether to follow the spider-being while abandoning Finnbogg, or to stay with the massive dwarf.
He could not abandon Finnbogg. He turned his face away from Shriek, looked reassuringly into Finnbogg's great liquid eyes. When he turned back, Shriek was gone. But Annie and Horace, to Clive's gratification, had remained with him and the dwarf.
Clive repeated his question to Finnbogg.
"Bad Nihonjin here. Not like anybody else. Not like Finnbogg people, not like major people, not like Q'oornans. Not like any gaijin. Baa Nihonjin kill everybody, everybody, everybody." He set up a snuffling that would have been funny had his sadness not been so profound and so sincere.
"Nihonjin?" Annie exclaimed. "Gaijin?"
"Yes, yes," Finnbogg panted. "Annie knows Nihonjin?"
"High probability, User Finnbogg. Nihonjin anthros? Femmes?"
Finnbogg shook his head in puzzlement.
"Ah—boy Nihonjin or girl Nihonjin?"
"All boys, all boys, yes! Nihonjin here, ooh, bad, bad."
Clive said, "What are you talking about?"
Before Finnbogg or Annie could respond, Horace Hamilton Smythe said, "I think I know what he means, sah."
"You do?"
Even as they spoke, the four companions had drifted toward the base of the hill, toward the place where Shriek had last been seen. Clive peered around, looking for the arachnoid, but to no avail.
"I do, sah," Smythe nodded.
"Well?"
"Has the major ever been out East?"
"No farther than Zanzibar, Smythe."
"I've been farther, sah. Been to the Far East. As I recall, sah, the Japanese call their country Nippon, or Nihon. They call themselves Nihonjin."
"Those quaint little folk?"
"Th
ere's a lot more to them than that, sah."
"Why, I've seen their paintings and vases. Quite lovely. Heard a lecture or two about their customs. Think I met one of them once. Took him for a Chinese. Chap seemed upset. Don't see why. They look quite alike, come from the same corner of God's Earth, don't they? What's the difference, eh? But the chap was quite emphatic about it, wouldn't let it pass.
Finally had to excuse myself. Deuced odd fellow, I'd say."
"Yes, sah." Smythe's face was a study in neutrality.
Clive looked around. Annie and Finnbogg were engaged in quiet conversation. Annie had seated herself on the ground and was speaking earnestly to the dwarf. She asked him questions and he nodded his great head in agreement or dissent.
"Call themselves Nihonjin, do they?" Clive said to Smythe. "Well, I don't see why old Finnbogg's so exercised about them. Just a bunch of polite little chaps, interested in arranging flowers and drinking tea and wearing those funny robes, whatever they call the odd things."
"Kimonos, sah."
"Indeed." Clive addressed Finnbogg. "Well, old chap, if you think these Nihonjin are so bad, I wonder what you propose we do, eh? You're sure they live hereabouts? Don't think we've fallen through the earth like some characters of Mr. Dodgson's, do you? And landed in Japan? Eh?"
"Nihonjin here. Finnbogg know. Know about Nihonjin. Not many, but very bad people, very fierce people. Even Q'oornans afraid of Nihonjin, friend Clive."
"And what do we do?"
"Can go back?" The dwarf pointed up the hill behind them. The opening through which they had emerged remained an elusive prey. "Back home, maybe? Back to river?"
"Let's take a look." Clive gestured vaguely toward the place where they had emerged.
Finnbogg broke away from the others and raced up the hill. Clive, Annie, and Smythe followed him, struggling and panting. The hillside was dotted by scrubby trees and brush. It had been a lot easier to descend than it was to climb back up, and all except Finnbogg used the vegetation for handholds to pull themselves along.
The dwarf arrived well ahead of his companions.
He leaped for the place where they had emerged— and rebounded. He thumped the earth with his massive fists, kicked at it with his great feet, to no avail. He pulled at bushes with his heavy fingers, tearing away clods of soil, turning this way and that, snuffling at the ground and howling miserably, but finding no sign of the glowing chute.
"Cannot go back," he moaned. "Lost. Finnbogg lost. Finnbogg's friends lost. Everybody lost. Oh, Nihonjin come. Will eat roast Finnbogg for dinner."
"They're cannibals?" Clive gasped.
Finnbogg moaned.
"I wouldn't take the doggy chap's fears too seriously," Smythe advised.
"Eh?"
"Finnbogg's a simple soul, Major. And we've seen how much he loves fanciful tales. Where did he learn about the Nihonjin, anyway? Don't think he's been here before, I don't. He doesn't seem to know this place in particular. May be giving us an old wives' tale—or the doggy equivalent of one, if the major takes my meaning, sah."
Clive looked over the landscape, shading his eyes with one hand. It was so devilishly normal, he thought. In a paradoxical way, that was the strangest part of all. He tried to reconstruct his experiences since entering the Dungeon at the ruby-hearted rock in the Sudd.
What was the nature of the Dungeon?
At first it had seemed like a world comparable to Earth, however strange it was in its own way. A black planet turning in solitude, the millions and millions of stars that Clive knew, all to one side, and the mysterious swirling spiral to the other. As the Dungeon revolved, any point would face first the milli0ns of stars—what Clive was coming to think of as the known universe—and then the spiral that he felt contained the answer to the mystery of the Dungeon.
But as one passed through levels, all of that changed.
There was the strange aerial train, with its cars seemingly snatched from different loci in time and space.
There was the strange tumble when Clive and his companions had pursued Philo Goode and his confederates from the train.
There was the egglike chamber with its glowing multicolored disks. Why had all of the disks save one been fixed and impenetrable, while the one that brought the travelers to this hillside had opened effortlessly for them?
The structure of the Dungeon was a mystery, as much so as its purpose.
"Major, sah?"
Clive blinked.
"Hadn't we best be moving on, sah?"
"Whither, Smythe?"
"I don't know, sah. The major is the commanding officer, sah. One had hoped that he would offer a plan, sah." Smythe's face was as bland and as expectant as that of an innocent child.
"Well, I suppose there is no constructive point in merely standing about. I wish I knew where Shriek had gone, but there appears nothing to be gained by waiting around this hillside. She may never return." He didn't really believe that, but he felt that Smythe was right. Passivity was not the means to survival in the Dungeon.
"Suppose we follow a generally downward path," Clive suggested. "What's your opinion, Smythe?"
"Lacking other information, sah, that's most often a good idea. Leads to water, most often leads to any settlement in the region. And it's easiest on the troops. Solid military doctrine, as I'm sure the major will recall from his training with the Guards."
"Very well—"
"Only, sah, if I might make so bold, sah. Perhaps Miss Annie could use that device of hers to give us a map once more."
"Splendid idea, yes." He looked at the young woman.
Without a word, she reached inside her bodice and did something to the Baalbec A-9. "How's this?" she asked.
In the air before her appeared a three-dimensional image of the landscape before them. It resembled one of the sand-table models that Brigadier Leicester's staff officers used in pointing out tactical problems when the Guards were preparing to go on maneuvers.
Clive could see the hillside where they stood. He searched in vain for a tiny representation of the glowing disk through which they had emerged. Hills and vales spread before them, and a few gentle streams that flowed together to make larger streams. Eventually, if the insubstantial model were large enough, Clive might learn where the streams led: to lakes, rivers, eventually to the sea. And of course to the distant villages that held such tantalizing hope of understanding, if not of ultimate escape from the Dungeon.
Was there a port? Were there ships and sailors who knew the full geography of this world?
To the right of the travelers, beyond a row of gentle hills, the model showed a flat plain, little more than a large meadow.
All of the landscape that the model showed was quiet, pastoral, still. All except the meadow.
There, something stirred.
CHAPTER 21
Nihonjin!
"Let's find out," Clive commended.
Annie moved her hand and the ghostly miniature disappeared.
They started forward, Clive and Horace Smythe in the lead, Annie close behind them to encourage poor Finnbogg. The dwarf was trembling and whining, frightened to proceed but even more frightened at the prospect of being left behind.
They didn't keep track of how long it took them to reach the next range of hills, nor did they have to round the grass-covered slope to find out what it was that had stirred on the meadow. Something—something little bigger than a moving speck—rounded the base of the nearest hill.
Clive stared. "What's that?"
"Can't tell, sah. But it's coming this way. We'll know soon enough."
The four companions continued to move toward the hill and the object continued to move toward them.
"It—looks like a vehicle. A coach, perhaps."
"I don't like this, sah. I don't know quite what it is, or who's behind all this. I'm afraid Finnbogg may be right, though, about those Japanese."
Clive shook his head. "Whoever they are, Smythe, we can use all the friends we can get in this h
eaven-forsaken place."
"I'm not so sure they're friends, sah. That's my point."
Finnbogg, in the meantime, was whining and cowering behind Annie. Annie had halted and was peering beneath the shade of one hand at the approaching vehicle.
"It isn't quite a coach," Clive said. "Looks more like some sort of bicycle, rickshaw kind of thing. See those two chaps pedaling away there, side by side. And those roller things instead of wheels. And their grand muck-a-muck up on that seat in the back." The contraption had approached within hailing distance, actually less than the length of a rugby field. Clive could see the two men who bent over handlebars, their legs revolving steadily on pedals that drove the rollers that propelled the vehicle. The man who sat in the center of the rear seat of the contraption held his arms crossed over his chest. Even as the machine bumped along, he reached to his side and brought up a peculiar device and held it to his face.
"What's that thing?" Clive asked.
Sergeant Smythe said, "Looks like a spyglass. Two of 'em, sah, lashed together. I think the chap's inspecting us."
The man lowered the device.
"Look at 'im now, sah. Really laying into those two blighters, ain't 'e? And they're putting their backs into it mightily. Making that cart go like the dickens!" As the vehicle approached, its mechanism could be heard clattering and its parts creaking like a coach bouncing along a dirt road in rural Sussex. It skidded to a halt a few yards from Clive and the others. The two pedalers hopped off and stationed themselves between the cart and Clive's party. They were brown-skinned men with Oriental features, both apparently in their forties. They wore the much-patched but meticulously preserved remnants of tan military uniforms, cloth-wrapped leggings, and makeshift boots.
The man riding behind them stood without leaving the cart. He appeared to be ten years older than the others, and wore a uniform with more elaborate markings. He pointed at Annie and shouted a command in a language Clive did not understand.
Folliot drew himself up. Speaking in the local patois, he demanded to know his identity.